Tag Archives: minimum alcohol pricing

30 September 2024 – today’s press releases

  • Truss: Conservative Leadership contenders must pledge to strip her of £115,000 allowance
  • Scotland’s trains are ‘erratic and expensive’ under the SNP
  • Rennie responds to MUP rise
  • Scot Lib Dems respond to Truss leadership claims

Truss: Conservative Leadership contenders must pledge to strip her of £115,000 allowance

Responding to Liz Truss’s appearance at Conservative Party Conference, Liberal Democrat Deputy Leader Daisy Cooper MP said:

Liz Truss’s failure to recognise the economic vandalism that she oversaw is a kick in the teeth to all those who endured their mortgage rates spiralling and were worried about losing their homes as a result of her disastrous policies.

It’s outrageous that instead of calling out the damage that she did, the Conservative Party actually allowed her to stand as one of their candidates at the General Election.

Every Conservative Party Leadership candidate must condemn Truss’s terrible record and pledge that they would strip her of her ex-PM allowance of up to £115,000 a year.

Scotland’s trains are ‘erratic and expensive’ under the SNP

Scottish Liberal Democrats have highlighted their plans to make Scotland’s rail services cheap, reliable and frequent as the SNP bring back peak fares today (Monday 30th September), with passengers now being hit by higher ticket prices and a reduced timetable.

In August, the SNP government announced that it would reintroduce peak rail fares, meaning that the price of the top ticket between Glasgow and Edinburgh has now risen by 8.6% to £31.40.

This hike comes as ScotRail continue to operate a temporary timetable with far fewer trains available. In total, about 600 services were slashed from the ScotRail timetable, with only around 50% of services running on Sundays.

Posted in News, Press releases and Scotland | Also tagged , , , and | Leave a comment

Rennie calls for emergency summit on alcohol pricing

Today the European Court of Justice ruled that minimum alcohol pricing is contrary to EU law if other tax options exist.

From the BBC:

A legal challenge was brought by the SWA, which argued the Scottish government’s legislation breached European law.

The European court ruling said: “The Court of Justice considers that the effect of the Scottish legislation is significantly to restrict the market, and this might be avoided by the introduction of a tax measure designed to increase the price of alcohol instead of a measure imposing a minimum price per unit of alcohol.”

It added: “The court states that it is ultimately for the national court to determine whether measures other than that provided for by the Scottish legislation, such as increased taxation on alcoholic drinks, are capable of protecting human life and health as effectively as the current legislation, while being less restrictive of trade in those products within the EU.”

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie called for an emergency summit to review options:

Posted in News | Also tagged and | 21 Comments

Eric Avebury writes…Society cannot afford to scrap the alcohol duty escalator

Alcohol and Ulcerative ColitisLast week’s Budget saw the Chancellor renege on the Government’s commitment to tackle the problem of cheap alcohol by scrapping the alcohol duty escalator. This move is a step that society simply cannot afford; not only will these duty cuts result in a shortfall of £290 million to the Exchequer when Osborne admits we are still going to be in deficit until 2018, but with the cost of alcohol harm in the UK exceeding £25 billion each year, our public services – particularly the NHS – can’t cope …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , and | 11 Comments

Lib Dem members back plain cigarette packaging, but more evenly divided on minimum alcohol pricing

Lib Dem Voice has polled our members-only forum  to discover what Lib Dem members think of various political issues, the Coalition, and the performance of key party figures. More than 600 party members have responded, and we’re publishing the full results.

Two-thirds of Lib Dem members back plain cigarette packaging

Do you support or oppose banning brightly coloured branding and packaging for cigarettes and introducing plain packs?

    40% – Strongly support
     
    26% – Tend to support

    Total support = 66%
     
    17% – Tend to oppose
     
    11% – Strongly oppose

    Total oppose = 28%
     
    5% – Don’t know

Two-thirds of Lib …

Posted in LDV Members poll | Also tagged , , , and | 21 Comments

Opinion: Minimum alcohol pricing – an attack on the poor

News that David Cameron is planning on imposing minimum alcohol pricing has not produced anything near the level of disgust that it should have.

This policy has the fatal flaw of expecting alcoholics and binge drinkers to behave in a rational and financially prudent manner. It’s self-evident that both groups will continue to purchase alcohol at a higher price, sacrificing other parts of their budget to make up the difference – perhaps clothing, perhaps food, perhaps their children. And let’s not forget, this policy will penalise all drinkers, not just the minority who commit crimes whilst under alcoholic …

Posted in Op-eds | 57 Comments
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